‘Attractive’ post-Fagan option hiding in plain sight
Murray Wenzel |
Brisbane Lions players have backed one of the club’s unsung heroes to step up if coach Chris Fagan opts not to fulfil the final year of his contract.
Fagan will coach his fourth-straight grand final in his eighth consecutive AFL finals campaign, against Fremantle on Saturday.
The 65-year-old has another year to run on his contract but is expected to make a call on his immediate future once the dust has settled on this season.
“You don’t sit down and talk about contracts when you’re in the middle of a finals series,” Lions chairman Andrew Wellington told AAP.
“Chris will, like every year, reassess where he’s at and how he’s feeling. Obviously he’s doing a great job, so we’ll chat when he’s ready.”
Fagan has largely remained a picture of calm and composure as the Lions, and the man himself, negotiated their share of on and off-field issues to sit one win from a rare premiership three-peat.
But players this week have been quick to point out the influence of football manager Danny Daly, who joined the club as an assistant in 2015, two years before Fagan arrived.
Daly left a career in banking to join Collingwood in 2000, before stints at North Melbourne and Richmond.
He replaced David Noble as Lions football boss in 2020 and, while retaining a low profile, has supreme backing from the players.
In recent times he’s knocked back interest from Gold Coast, Collingwood, Essendon, West Coast and Melbourne.
“One of the most humble guys I’ve ever met and leads by example,” Jarrod Berry said.
“The players love him because he cares so much. You feel comfortable around the club, you get good results.”
Daly was helping Darcy Gardiner, a Lions rookie in 2014, analyse opposition forwards in their early years at the club.
“He’d be a great head coach. I don’t doubt he could, it’s whether he wants it or not,” Gardiner told AAP.
“You can’t question his loyalty; sticking with you in the crap times and the good times and you see a lot of other clubs trying to pinch him, which speaks volumes.”
When players felt rushed ahead of their 2023 grand final loss to Collingwood it was Daly who arranged an earlier Wednesday arrival for the three deciders that have followed.
It means the team will touch down in Melbourne mid-afternoon on Wednesday, more than 24 hours before the Dockers land.
Wellington has appreciated Daly and Fagan’s steady, no-nonsense approach as much as the players.
“It’s an industry with so many highs and lows, you have to be so careful not to get caught up in either,” he said.
And as for the prospect of a Daly succession plan?
“I always say it’s not my ambition to employ people that no-one else wants,” Wellington said of rival clubs’ interest.
“So it’s flattering; they admire what we’ve been able to do and it makes our people attractive.
“Our job is to keep developing people so that if we do lose someone, there’s other people that have been around them that can lean in and fill the gap.”
AAP